I would think they’d transition from the personality based reviewer model like WA even though that model provides the best experience for serious winos.
It comes with a lot of liabilities from a business perspective and branding strategy.
Aren’t Michelin restaurant reviews anonymous?
Quick search quite the contrary to the WA model.
Anonymity: Although our inspectors are employees of Michelin, they’re above all customers first - just like you. Testing restaurants in complete anonymity in order to ensure that they do not receive any special treatment is essential to the creditability of the MICHELIN Guide.
Sure…I guess what I meant by prominent role was more a public role. I read a couple of comments about people saying that the weren’t moved by Bob Parker’s reviews because they knew his palate and theirs didn’t align. With anonymous reviewers that wouldn’t be the case, right?
That’s the downside of the anonymous reviewer, there’s no personal connection or affinity.
I viewed wine reviews like pizza. I love Canadian bacon and pineapple pizza. If you live on the east coast you’d want to know that before you follow my recommendation. LOL
I think Wine Advocate still has a bit more influence than many may recognize or realize. No need to rehash the anti Parker sentiments of those who have disdain for his influence - but for those who prefer a riper style he and his acolytes are pretty consistent. WK is quite the critic - very bright guy.
All idle speculation of course, and I hope William will put us out of our misery by explaining exactly what is meant by this announcement. I would guess that giving Michelin grapes, stars, barrels or whatever will be along the same lines as what the RVF does (scores to wines and stars to the domains).
It could mean the end of the “RP” score, which is already obsolete and a little demeaning to the critics that have actually tasted the wines, replacing it by an “M” score.
I’ve already seen a change in France where the Parker brand was still widely used by sites - it still is, but less than before: on iDealwine for example, they now use both Parker and “Wine Advocate”. Little by little, as you would expect a good decade after he hung up his boots, the RP brand will disappear.
This isn’t a criticism of Parker at all - on the contrary - for his brand to still have such market penetration is in itself extraordinary.
I think TWA has plenty of life in it yet, but I agree with Mark that the lack of Bordeaux content is problematic - and rather ironic.
Anonymous reviewers in restaurants are no real issue as the food is meant to be eaten that night, as soon as it is served.
Wine isn’t like that at all. Even non-anonymous reviewers and especially group blind tastings a la the Wine Spectator led us to bigger more fruit driven wines for years. For me personally, I want to know who is reviewing the wines, and how, as whether my palate aligns with theirs and whether they understand how the wines will evolve over time is much more important to me with wine than dining.
I think individual reviewers play a very important role tthese days. It’s just that the market has grown up and doesn’t eat out of anybody’s hand anymore.
The impact that Robert Parker and Marvin Shanken had was more about Americans being new to wine than them being geniuses. Without any disrespect to RP, I think the current field of critics for wine review is stronger than it’s ever been in my career, excepting the loss of Josh Reynolds.
And honestly, I’d rather have useful reviews than a feeding frenzy based on the number 90 (then 92, then 94, then 95, then 97, hitting 102 sometime soon…).
Ok and then after that it is about food. I think you broach the important thing for my palate when you mention fruit driven wines. If I am sitting down to have a glass of wine I am going for a big (but balanced) California Cab (usually Napa) most of the time. Or if I am doing a blind tasting for fun it usually is California Napa centric. Not always - certainly I will do a Bordeaux once in a while and then there was that new world pinot tasting I did a long time ago! (I don’t do Burgundy - too expensive and pinot’s really just aren’t my thing - no offense).
But that is very different from a Michelin style dinner with matching wines - here it is maybe a bottle of a Napa Cab if steak is on the menu but almost always old world wines - throw in a Northern Rhone, some Burgundy whites, maybe an affordable village burgundy, a Bordeaux, some Italian wines with the pasta dish - basically food wines.
The thing is - for me there really is a thing as a food wine - I don’t really care for big fruit driven wines with fine dining. They tend to overpower the food and don’t match well. Now, certainly one could argue that wine is meant to be consumed with food and for those feel that way I can understand they would eschew the Napa wines of the 90’s and 00’s and go for a more understated style - aka “The New California Wine.” Anyhow, as consumers turn away from wine as beverage to drink (see my post on the WSJ article today - it is yesterdays news) I see this alliance as perhaps a way to promote the consumption of wine in a more traditional manner - at the dining table - nothing wrong with that.
Agreed about Josh, but Josh I think is the perfect example of my point. He was an incredible wealth of knowledge. There is a part of me that says he should have been writing books instead of reviews. HIs lack of market influence in his reviews was sad (clearly should have been MUCH higher), and I think a lot of drinkers missed out on what may have been one of the best wine critics ever.
Rating exhaustion is a very real thing, and frankly, I don’t know many that are reading the tasting notes anymore either. It’s gotten sad.
Interestingly, I think Cellar Tracker has a significant amount of influence.
This is a total side track, but one that I think is relevant here. The coverage I have seen this year has been focused on entirely too many regions. Why doesn’t Bordeaux, Napa, Burgundy, Champagne and the other major regions getting more coverage, not less? I’m really sure the Wine Advocate has done more articles on Australia than Bordeaux this year. Are any of us reading those? It just seems like the critic choice of coverage this year has been suspiciously off for the major regions.
Almost certainly true, though I think that is partially an artifact of the structure of the Aus trade vs. Bordeaux trade. Bordeaux gets a giant set of notes twice annually (EP and in bottle) plus a few producer verticals here or there. Whereas Aus, with its more free-for-all market where everyone releases on their own schedule, gets individual articles on specific producers, or micro-regions, or whatever in part because Erin Larkin has to go venture out to them to taste the wines rather than having a set period of a few weeks where the entire trade descends on the region. So you’ll get a ton of short producer profile articles with like 5-15 notes.
That said, I share the view that the Bordeaux coverage is less than you’d hope, particularly given the pub’s history. I know plenty of other folks on the board gripe at WK about this. I sympathize with William in that he will have some vocal contingent of subscribers peeved with him no matter where he focuses his attention as between Burg, Bdx, and whatever part of the Champagne docket he’s still holding… and all of us want him to remain the primary reviewer for our specific pet region!
See that’s the thing. Why just have 2? It’s 2025, so you could do retrospectives on the last 50 years since all 5 vintages were highly touted at one point or another!
